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Hi
1) Full screen playback takes over the entire screen with the video on most browsers and also on iPhone. However on iPad (tested with iOS 8.1.2) entering full screen, maximizes the video but leaves the browser bar at the top visible without engaging Apple’s own full screen playback controls. The page allows scrolling up and down and can get a little messy, also you can see the rest of the page below the video when scrolled quickly up. Would it be possible to look at engaging Apple’s full screen playback for iPad? like happens with iPhone.
2) Full screen button – can get a little lost being top right over video if video is white below. Also gets hidden on some devices like ipad if logged into wordpress and their dashboard overlays a bar along the top hiding the FV full screen button. Would you consider moving to the FV navigation bar like Youtube, Vimeo and customers are maybe used to? Or would it be feasible to add customisation within WordPress plugin settings for the navigation skins to be changed? plus allow the size/height of the navigation controls to be increased?
3) With quality switching, it looks like iPad and iPhone will automatically play the SD file. Do you know if possibly to specify a default behavior to play the HD file on iOS devices?
Thanks
Mark
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Hello Mark,
1) iPad fullscreen – we will check this out, although I’m pretty sure that Vimeo works the same way.
2) Full screen button – the button graphic should have some shadow on it, we will doublecheck. We will fix the wp-admin-bar issue.
3) Quality switching – do you mean the Vimeo videos? For Vimeo videos iPad uses the provided HLS stream which has automated quality switching.
Thanks,
Martin
Hi Martin
Thanks for your reply.
1) iPad fullscreen – Vimeo & JW player engages proper Apple full screen on my configuration. However, maybe you mean Youtube (inside safari), this does the same as FV player and doesnt engage Apple’s full screen. Although Youtube app works better.
2) Good if you can fix the WP bar but not a big issue. Moving the full screen button down to the navigation bar would be a personal wish list request. Maybe you have reasons to have top right and keep as is, a skinning option if feasible in the future would please all, or skin options that are similar to Vimeo or Youtube :-)
The FV navigation bar and full screen button is quite delicate and small on iPad. A slight increase in size/height if possible would improve, however if you manage to engage proper Apple full screen as per 1) above, Apple’s navigation controls are bigger and would part solve the issues, when in full screen anyway. A lot of my clients (brides) tend to use iPads at home.
3) I was wondering if FV plugin settings could have a setting added to let the website owner default to play HD first instead of SD, both for desktop and iPad viewing. (JW let you do this but only with their Flash player, I am moving away from Flash to HTML 5 which seems to play smoother nowadays). Your demo page, was what I tested, the SD button is highlighted when loaded. If I was to buy a commercial FV licence, my intention would be to self host and specify SD and HD files, and ideally serve HD by default. Only serving SD if the viewer manually selects or if auto-switching was possible if a slow connection – I dont know if this is feasible with self hosted 2 x mp4 files. Or I could consider only serving 1 file – the HD file, if buffer time till first play is not too long on average connection speeds.
On iPad: Vimeo and JW dont show the usual HD button like they do on desktop browsers. JW 5 is serving the SD file. Vimeo quality looks like SD, but my Vimeo account is currently basic and doesnt allow HD embedding. If Vimeo Plus and Pro uses HLS stream and automatic quality streaming, that is great.
The main issue preventing me proceeding fully at the moment with FV and purchasing a commercial licence is the playback issue reported here:
https://foliovision.com/support/fv-wordpress-flowplayer/troubleshooting/ipad-ios-81-issuesVimeo seems to perform overall the best and fast buffer/start play time, low annual cost and if HLS streaming is automatic, maybe I should go back to Vimeo Plus which I used years ago, before the copyright music scares started. Licensed music is all sorted now, but I would still like a good HTML 5 self hosted solution if you are confident the main issues can be fixed? No worries if some are not feasible or likely any time soon, but would appreciate your honest heads up if possible.
Thanks
Mark
Hello Mark,
1) iPad Fullscreen – I tested this on iPad with iOS 5.1.1 and 7.1. The difference is that jwPlayer uses the device native fullscreen more. The advantage is that the interface is touch optimized, as you noted below.
Flowplayer just uses the web browsers full screen mode which on iPad doesn’t cover the entire screen and keeps the browser tabs visible. The advantage is that the player appearance doesn’t change. It can also use any overlays and so on, so if you have popup boxes appearing, it makes sense to use this.
But I see why you prefer that. We will also check iOS 8 and will make a decision if we want to use the native fullscreen mode for iPads. We already use it for Android, as it’s more compatible.
2) Fullscreen button and skins – I think our first step should be to make the controls bigger on iPad. We will discuss moving of the fullscreen button.
Also our Fullscreen button has shadow on it, so it is visible on white backgrounds: https://foliovision.com/site/wp-content/plugins/fv-wordpress-flowplayer/css/img/white@x2.png
3) Quality switching – the default can be adjusted by positioning the HD option as the first, just like in step 3. here: https://foliovision.com/player/switch-video-quality
We are still checking on the iOS 8 issue which you reported.
Thanks,
Martin
Hello Mark,
1) iPad Fullscreen – we had a look, discussed the pros and cons and we will use the native fullscreen for any touch device. That means iPad will use the entire screen for video when the fullscreen is toggled.
We will be releasing a new version of our plugin today or tomorrow. You can check the behavior on our website already.
Thank you for all the feedback.
Thanks,
Martin
Hello Mark,
FV WordPress Flowplayer 2.3.10 was released and it uses native fullscreen mode of iPad (and actually any touch device get that now).
Thanks
Martin
Hi Martin,
Thats great you have decided to use native iPad full screen and can implement so quickly.
Yes the white button drop shadow means it doesnt vanish completely, just the colour/position combined with the small size can gets a little lost or fiddly to use at times. I could live with it there, is just a preference to locate to the navigation bar.
Many thanks for pointing out that HD can be set to play first, that seems perfect, combined with the facility to define the label text is very powerful.
FYI I tried playing the videos on your site again on iPad iOS 8.1.2 today and 3 dots flash and buffers continuous without the video starting playback. If you have updated your site plugin, something seems to be causing a new problem since yesterday, after a cold boot/restart of the iPad, this previously resolved the problem but not today – the video’s on your site still stick at the 3 dots flashing stage. The FV video on my site plays fine, so the old plugin is performing as before.
I cannot begin to imagine the time it must take for you guys to test across all the combination of devices and browser/OS versions and the frustration when things break…
Thanks
Mark
Hello Mark,
our website runs the latest development version of FV Player Pro which is not yet released. It brings Vimeo Channel feature, but we noticed this bug with quality switching which you described. We work on resolving that.
Thanks,
Martin
Hi Martin,
I just updated FV wordpress plugin and native full screen on my iPad is working great.
Thank you very much for listening and acting so fast!
Thanks
Mark
